Purgatory

January 2016 | poetry

Trying out for the Senior Class Play’s

romantic lead opposite my girl but coming in second

to the ever-popular handsome hunky Everett

then having to watch him romancing her

on-stage from backstage for weeks.

Waiting for my wife in this busy hair salon

with all the clipping, combing, coiffing

and fussing with hair length, color, body . . .

with the incessant small talk all these people wasting

so much time it’s hair for crying out loud!

As a youngster he was an altar boy

carrying the cross or The Holy Book

to the altar, his face stern with religiosity.

Today he’s in the ICU waiting for the doctors

to decide if he should stay there or go to hospice.

by Michael Estabrook

Retired now working around the yard and writing more poems or trying to anyhow. Noticed 2 Cooper’s hawks staked out in our yard or above it I should say explains the disappearing chipmunks.

The droning drowns out my thoughts

January 2016 | poetry

They give me no peace,

constantly flying over

at all hours.

Right on schedule,

with the precision

of a quartz timepiece.

The drone unmistakable,

they buzz by,

far too small

and too low

for commercial aircraft,

yet unassuming enough

for covert military intelligence.

Manned or unmanned, it

makes no difference, as

my house sits outside

any published flight plans.

This much I know.

That leaves me

as their sole purpose

for being HERE,

their target.

It leaves me,

also, the only one bothered.

Hell, the only one

to even acknowledge

the strangeness of

their presence.

But like everything else,

what can I do?

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

So as always,

I grit my teeth,

force a smile,

and pretend I

don’t notice.

It’s harder than it looks.

by Matthew Armagost

Matter

January 2016 | poetry

You said

I could be anything

So I became “Me”

But then

You said

That “Me” was too

Cliché

Predictable

Counterfeit

So I became

A sunflower

stretching with every fiber

of my being

toward the sky

toward the light

But you didn’t like that

You said

I set my sights too high

So I became a tortoise

stagnant

relying on my complacency and

not my accountability

But you quickly grew bored of me

You said

That I took things too slow

So I became a feather

bending and waning

vulnerable to impurities

and

emotional cacophony

lilting.

But then

You said

I was too soft

I traded hats with a thousand strangers

and nothing seemed to fit

your rules

So I became a cardboard box

With my edges fraying

And a sticker marked FRAGILE

Slapped on my left side

You put me in storage

And let me become

Worn

Weathered

Broken

And when you took me out again

My sticker had fallen off

And I wasn’t FRAGILE anymore.

The edges of me started to disintegrate

Until

I was just matter

Even though

all this time I felt like

I Didn’t.

by Piper Wood

The Weight of Violence

January 2016 | poetry

You’re in the pickup with Scotty B and buzzing with anticipation cause you’re about to score and this makes your skin tingle thinking about the rush of dopamine and potential for sudden violence that comes with every deal and to feed the synergy you reach for the volume on the stereo just as the song ends and the void of sound takes you back to the bar

where amid the neon and dinge of a dive turned trendy you caught the lean through the corner of your eye before the kiss between two guys who looked like college kids enjoying a night on-the-slum and unaware of the culture shift when you leave the sandstone and iron of Okie Yuppie U.

Your first instinct was fear so you scanned the bar while telling yourself this is Tulsa and waited for the slur you’ve heard so many times it has no impact anymore and your mind went back to the night you and Scotty B were good and lit and laughing and you placed a hand on the curve of his ribs in a manner that made his spine stiffen as he shrugged away and this instant had you at the brink of fight or flight until Scotty B pretended nothing happened and you let your fists uncurl.

This is Tulsa.  And you can’t understand the way things are changing because you know it never will for you with your line of descent traced through generations of Hank and Merle and Cash on vinyl and your father singing Garth’s ode with the bulls and blood and dust and mud and in the silence between songs you turn to Scotty B and twang out the drawl real nice when you tell him used to be they called this shit Horse back in the seventies and that’s the best name for a drug they ever was.

by Geoff Peck

Geoff Peck received his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and is currently a PhD candidate at the University of North Dakota.  His fiction and poetry have appeared in over a dozen journals and he has been nominated for Best New American Poets after winning the Academy of American Poets Thomas McGrath Award.